How long before replacing steering tires?

The rings are not where they need to be to balance the tire. They are ineffective. The media needs to be able to go to the exact opposite side of the imbalance in the width of that tire whever it may be to balance things out. If the media is all inside of the tire it will do that. If it's in a ring sandwiched in between your drive tires it can't, it's not even possible. And there isn't enough of it in there anyway. Run whatever makes you happy. I know what has worked and what hasn't with my ride.

 

I think in an earlier post you stated that Centramatics are 1/2" diameter. That's not quite true. The ones I had installed are at least an inch in diameter, which means the lead balls are large enough to get the job done, at least as far as my own experience.

I have a little short of 200,000 miles on my steer tires with the Centramatics and about 100,000 miles on my drives with Centramatics. I have really even wear on all my tractor tires. That's a miracle. Before Centramatics I had issues with cupping and feathering on all my tires. My first set of drives lasted a whopping 80,000 miles after a three axle alignment and my drives...fuggedaboudit.

I AM intrigued by your description of putting balancing balls INSIDE the tires. That makes sense to me. What kind and how many (or what weight) do you put in each tire?

For now I'm really really happy with the choice to put Centramatics on all three axles. My tires wear evenly and I expect to get over 200,000 miles from all positions. Tires were a fairly large cost center for me, now I am hoping that will reign in to normal.

One other thing about Centramatics on duals, I no longer have to hunt for the inside tire valve stem to check pressure. There's only one opening and it's easy to find.

 

A friend bought a set just last month. Says his Pete never drove that smooth, even when it was new. It may be snake oil. But it seems to work. And, they’ve been around long enough that they would have been exposed if they didn’t live up to their claims.

 

Did not fall for the sales pitch. Just seen around that after they were mounted on a few different trucks.

 

If you bought them, you fell for it.
Somebody show proof. I don't want to hear- well I got this and that.
I want to see physical proof that they actually make the rubber magically make the rubber stay on the casing.
They are designed to balance the tire supposedly. So either they tire is either runs completely bald in 1 spot and has tread on the other side. OR it is magically applying rubber going down the road. Which is it?
Now if your telling me that you are able to run it down to 1 or 2/32 instead of taking it off at 6 or 7/32 because it looks more round to you, that's not the same.

 

I can't remember the brand name. You can buy them from any Love's tire shop or even Fleetpride, etc. They are tiny ceramic beads about the size of lead shot. I dump 16 ounces inside every tire when mounting them. They only recommend 12 ounces in the steers but I always put 16 in the steers too.

When it's time to put new tires on I use a shop vac to recover the old beads and weigh them out on a set of scales and use them again in the new tires. A few years ago I had a set of recaps with beads in them that were some smooth running tires.

Centramatic has 16 ounces inside that ring doesn't it? So that's 8 ounces of weight per tire and it isn't even where it's really needed. The centripetal force can't really send it where it needs to go on a set of duals because it is trapped inside a small ring in between the wheels. Beads inside of a tire are much more effective at dynamically keeping your tires balanced.

 

My tires cupped wore uneven . I did a lazer alignment with M&D everything is good currently have 200,000 on drives but very low tread depth steers had 170,000 i put them on rears. But befor my alignment my steers would only last 80k cords start to show. Now i had 5 axle alignments done at 5 different locations all were junk . M&D actually solved my issue . The Mech actually told me to flip 1 steer on the rim on driverside only he garanteed better ride he was right. No issues since . Chad in KC with M&D is the man on alignments was for me.